WoW Radio
WoW Radio (also known as WCRadio) is an independent group of players that have come together to produce and promote live radio shoutcasts that air throughout the week. The shows are about 90% talk and 10% music, with most of the music being on the show "Downtime Downunder" during the US server weekly maintenance. Their existence and exhibitions are acknowledged and approved by Blizzard, and have been featured on the Official Website more than six times, that being the official website of the WoW Community. WoW Radio was even let in to BlizzCon and sent out the only live video feed covering everything on the show floor. They began as one show, Saturday Nights with Athalus, on October 11th of 2004. Now they have one show every night of the week. Athalus left the station on the 18 March 2006 after his final goodbye show. The station is now owned by TotalBiscuit who also hosted WoW Radio's flagship shows, EPIC and Blue Plz! which took over Athalus' spot on Saturday nights. He now hosts the show Titan with co-host Eriyanna. Interviews WoW Radio has conducted a large number of interviews with various persons and organizations of note within the WoW community. The following is a selection. * The Four Horsemen (Representatives from Nihilum, DnT, Forte and Method in a round-table debate) * Caydiem (Blizzard Community Manager) * Myndflame Entertainment (Authors of the hugely successful Zinwrath and Illegal Danish) * Rufus Cubed (Authors of Return, Terran also worked on the WoW Southpark episode) * Tristan Pope (Author of Machinima 101, Not another love story, Switchers, now works for Blizzard) * Oxhorn (Author of a million and one popular machinima including Inventing Swearwords) * Nihilum (World's #1 guild) * Death and Taxes (America's #1 guild) * Curse (Uber-guild and assocites of Curse-Gaming) * Method (EU Alliance uber-guild, world second Vashj kill) * Fangtooth (Ex-Community manager) * Brewguy (Winner of WoW Idol 2005) * Richard A. Knaak (Award-winning author of Warcraft and Diablo novels) * Cide (Author of the wildly popular CTRaid boss-mod) * CKKnight (Author of Fubar, Cartographer, a developer of Ace 2) * Rob Pardo (Vice president of Game-design, Blizzard Entertainment) * Spiritwolf (Popular comic author and forum personality) * Ghostwalka (Eminent lore-buff) * Sean Beeson (Composer) * Cranius (Creator of the popular Big Blue Dress musical machinima) * Baka-Savants (Creators of Chronicles of the Annoying Quest) WoW Radio 24/7 WoW Radio announced that it would be going '24/7'. In preparation for the project, the station upgraded it's streaming facilities significantly, recently upgrading it's quality to 128kb/s Stereo, at 44khz bitrate, whereas previously it broadcast in 56kb/s 44khz Mono format. WoW Radio's 24/7 project is known to involve scheduled reruns of archived shows, including their music breaks and broadcast in their original quality, where available (rather than the archive quality, which is 56kb/s mono). It is also known that it intends to include several DJ sets, the testbed for which is Eriyanna's 'The Grind', which consists of several hours of grinding music including live trance mixes. A launch date for this service has yet to be announced but is expected shortly as of 5th February 2007. However, as of May 8 2007, the service has yet to launch with station-owner TotalBiscuit citing technical obstacles and a shift in priorities towards BlizzCon preparations, stating that 24/7 would be launching as soon as possible. As of November 2007 the system is in active public beta and a launch is full launch is expected this month. WoW Radio's streaming server has been further upgraded and can now handle over 3,000 live listeners at a time. Shows :See WoW Radio/Shows for a full list of current and future WoW Radio shows. :See WoW Radio/OldShows for a full list of past WoW Radio shows. IRC WoW Radio has its own IRC channel on the server irc.mmoirc.com, where fans can speak about the show, send messages to the hosts and generally hang out. Some shows rely on IRC such as Vendor Trash which is a community based show and the host, Slanik, invites the users to send him their opinions which he reads out. The IRC channel can be accessed by anyone. This can be done by clicking on the IRC/Chat link on the website, and then following the instructions. Similarly you can join the server irc.mmoirc.com and type /join #WoWRadio. Issues of negativity and past controversy It has been highlighted on a number of occasions that WoW Radio can be highly negative and critical regarding the World of Warcraft computer game. This in-itself is not necessarily a flaw and helps the station to achieve an independent style in their content, coming across more as fans of the game, rather than a corporate message medium. It has been known however for certain shows (in particular Blue Plz and Epic, both hosted by TotalBiscuit, with both shows now having been retired) to have a particularly negative tone in places, both about general gameplay, and Blizzard in particular. It should be noted that many value this particular point of view since there are few fansites willing to openly criticize Blizzard and it's policies out of fear of alienating them. WoW Radio has long survived without the aid of Blizzard entertainment and it can only be presumed therefore, has no such qualms. Some would argue that because of this independent stance, WoW Radio is currently the most valuable source for WoW-related media and information online. WoW Radio has had altercations with Blizzard entertainment in the past, not least after an expose of their treatment at BlizzCon in 2005. Hosts pointed out specifically the number of roadblocks that had been thrown in the way of their efforts to broadcast the event, despite being invited to do so, and the uneven treatment that they had received in comparison to other organizations attending the event. More recently, WoW Radio came under fire from Blizzard EU for the efforts of Project Golddigger and the Chronicles of the Goldfarmer movies in which TotalBiscuit was banned from the European forums and retaliated with a viral signature campaign to promote the movies, which spread like wildfire throughout the EU forum community. A large number of WoW Radio fans and staff were banned during this incident. There are varying opinions on the incident. It can be argued that the bans were justified as players were acting in defiance of the community manager's authority. Others point to the opinion that most of these players did not in fact breach the Codes of Conduct of Blizzard Europe's forum community, some going as far as to say that TotalBiscuit himself did not fall afoul of these regulations and that the ban was nothing more than an effort to silence a voice of dissent within the community who was rapidly gaining a following. What is clear however is that WoW Radio benefited significantly from the publicity of this event, some going as far as to call it a carefully orchestrated publicity stunt by station owner TotalBiscuit. As a result however, WoW Radio can no longer promote on the European forums, with those attempting to do so receiving bans without prior warning or justification. While it is clear that no-one is in possession of the full facts surrounding this debacle, some suggest that there is far more to this incident that meets the eye and go as far as to suggest that someone within Blizzard Europe is holding a grudge. This problem was only made worse when the EU Forums were spammed with multiple topics per forum advertising the site, against the wishes of WoW Radio themselves who were running a controlled, voluntary realm forum promotional campaign. Whatever Blizzard EU's issues with WoW Radio, no doubt compounded by the person who spammed the forums, resulted in many more 7 day suspensions. Recently station owner TotalBiscuit announced that after talking to community managers from Blizzard Europe, the past issues had been reconciled and WoW Radio has since been supported on the EU forums and community watch segment of the website. Listeners should be advised that the station will express the full and frank views of the show hosts and does not censor their opinions on any point. Please listen with an open mind and bear in mind that you may not necessarily agree with what you're hearing. Category:Community Category:Fan Sites Category:Podcasts